1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ceramic electronic component and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to a ceramic electronic component having excellent reliability and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an electronic component using a ceramic material, such as a capacitor, an inductor, a piezoelectric element, a varistor, a thermistor, or the like, includes a ceramic element made of a ceramic material, internal electrode layers formed within the ceramic element, and external electrodes installed on surfaces of the ceramic element, such that they are connected with respective internal electrode layers.
Among ceramic electronic components, a multilayer ceramic capacitor includes a plurality of laminated dielectric layers, internal electrode layers disposed to face each other, while having each of the dielectric layers interposed therebetween, and external electrodes electrically connected with the respective internal electrode layers.
The multilayer ceramic capacitor is commonly used as a component of mobile communications devices such as notebook computers, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), mobile phones, and the like, due to its advantages, such as miniaturization, high capacitance, and easy mounting.
Recently, as electronic devices have increasingly had higher performances and have become lighter, thinner, shorter, and smaller, electronic components have also been required to be small, have a high performance, and incur low manufacturing costs. In particular, the development of CPUs which have high speeds and devices which are smaller and lighter, digitalized, and multi-functionalized has prompted, research and development aimed at implementing a multilayer ceramic capacitor which is small, includes thinner layers, has high capacitance, and has low impedance in a high frequency area, and the like have been actively undertaken.